Mike and Mark discuss a friend’s stalled technical career. What’s the secret to reinvigorating his career?

Mark and Mike discuss the single most effective management tool - the one-on-one.

Mark and Mike continue their discussion on the single most effective management tool available today - the weekly one-on-one.

In the podcast, we refer to both a written summary of the key points for conducting one-on-ones, as well as a form useful for documenting your one-on-ones.

In today’s show we continue our conversation on one-on-ones. In addition to a brief review (very brief — not a substitute for listening to the previous two shows!), we review a number of questions and finer points:

1. I did one, and it was extremely awkward. How long will it take to get used to them?
2. In the first one, some of my folks were scared - why?
   In my first one, they didn’t seem too open to share personal info - what can I do about that?
3. My folks didn’t like me taking notes. What do I do?
4. I don’t like taking notes - can I just chat with them?
5. How do I follow up on old items?
6. What do I do if someone keeps reporting that they haven’t done something? I’ve got a forum to talk to them, but what do I say?
7. How can I reduce my folks coming to me between O3s with stuff that is best covered in the O3?
8. What if someone doesn’t show?
9. What if my team is spread across the entire continent, or one of my folks is travelling that week … Can I do these over the phone? And if so, what should I do differently?

In this week’s podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members. Feedback is the most frequently-used tool of effective managers. What is feedback? Feedback shows someone the impact of their behavior, allowing them to change ineffective actions or continue doing things that help the team achieve its goals.

The dirty little secret of most managers is that while they are DESPERATE to get feedback from their bosses, they then visit that same sin on their own team. Every time Mark asks groups of executives and managers if they’d like more guidance and response from their boss, everyone raises their hand. On the other hand, every group also believes that their team is hearing everything the team needs from them. Of course, it’s not true.

Another example of how little feedback is intentionally given is how managers defend themselves when we challenge them. “You don’t give enough feedback,” we suggest, and the common response is “I give detailed annual reviews,” or, better but still trivial, “I do quarterly reviews”. This is a great amount of feedback/guidance if you’re willing to wait 90 days or a whole year to change/improve anybody’s performance.

We believe the reason this is so is a combination of fear of conflict, and lack of skill. Basically, you probably see things all the time that you don’t like or would like to improve in some way. We think a lot of your fear is retention related: “Well, what I have to share is not that big, and if I say something, he might get mad and quit, and gee, he may not be great but he does more work than an open position would…”

The other reason is most managers don’t know how - this show will teach you.

How to do you feel about most of the meetings you attend? Are they productive, or generally considered a waste of time? Do you attend too many meetings? How do others value the meetings you run? If you are like most managers we know, your experience in running and participating in meetings is less than ideal.

Today’s show is the first of 2 or 3 shows to focus on running effective meetings. If you follow the guidelines we present here, your meeting will be much more effective, you’ll have less of them, and your individual and organizational performance will soar. And, it’s not hard!

A detailed outline of the podcast is located here. In addition, we’ve also provided you a Meeting Agenda Template that implements the guidelines we’ve discussed on today’s show.

Today we cover the second in our series on effective meetings.

A detailed outline of this week’s and last week’s podcast is located here. Also, be sure to check out the Meeting Agenda Template. We think you’ll find the template useful in improving the effectiveness of your meetings.

Today we wrap-up our conversation on effective meetings, as well as answer some listener questions on meetings, one-on-ones, and feedback.

Today, Mark and I discuss the topic of Delegation. There probably isn’t a management book out there that doesn’t talk about the importance of delegation. However, very seldom does the author get into the type of detail we’ll discuss today. Today, we cover the “how to” … how to determine what and to whom to delegate and specifically what specific steps to take when delegating to an individual.

After you’ve listened to the podcast, be sure to review our steps to effective delegation by downloading and reading the Effective Delegation Worksheet.

In addition, both Mark and I would really appreciate it if you would go to the website and register. Not too far in the future, we’ll be introducing some content specifically for registered users … kind of a way to reward those most interested in learning about how to be a more effective leader. I don’t think you’ll want to miss it, so take 30 seconds and register now.

Today we discuss the fine art of Coaching. Most managers probably think they do a fine job coaching their teams, but guess what? You probably have several misconceptions about coaching that prevent you from getting the absolute best out of your team. Today, we discuss coaching at length and present a coaching model that you can start using today to improve your coaching abilities. It’s both easier and takes less time than you think.

To improve your understanding of the Coaching Model we discuss on the podcast, download and print the Manager Tools Coaching Card prior to listening to the podcast.